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Connecting Industry-Creating Opportunity
The National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) is a business opportunity programme that identifies and develops mutually profitable links between companies across all industrial sectors so that under used resources such as energy, water and materials from one company can be recovered or reprocessed and reused by others.
NISP is a nationally coordinated programme with a network of 12 regional offices. The Northern Ireland office has a team of four specially trained industrial symbiosis practitioners who provide free help, advice and support to companies of all sizes and from every sector.
Bottom line benefits
NISP Northern Ireland is funded by Invest NI and does not charge companies to participate. Between April 2005 and September 2007 NISP members throughout the UK generated just over £108 million in new sales and made savings in excess of £89 million as a direct result of their involvement in the programme. At the same time, the synergies generated between NISP’s member companies have reduced the UK’s carbon emissions by 2.5 million tonnes and diverted more than 2.5 million tonnes of business waste from landfill.
NISP Northern Ireland’s member companies come from a range of sectors including food and drink, construction, engineering, textiles and waste management. The programme is supported by an industry led advisory group comprising of Bombardier Aerospace, Moy Park, Michelin, Montupet, Seagate, Alpha Resource Management and Glenfarm Holdings. It is also working with companies such as AMI, Canyon Europe, Diageo, Tyrone Crystal and United Feeds helping to identify business opportunities by means of improving their overall management of resources.
“It’s all about bringing companies together,” explains Trevor Knipe, Regional-Coordinator for NISP Northern Ireland, “both big and small.
“In some cases it’s clear where the saving can be made, or where the opportunity is, in others it’s less obvious and this is where the benefits of being part of a national programme with over 80 practitioners across the UK comes to the fore.
“This is where our expertise really helps the companies we work with. NISP doesn’t merely provide advice, it offers ongoing practical support that enables companies to turn opportunities into cash. As well as identifying ways to reuse previously discarded materials, we assist companies in securing resources to improve infrastructure and expand operations or help them obtain funding to carry out research and development.”
Food for thought
NISP played a vital role in turning an innovative and ambitious scheme by one of its members, Inetec, into a reality. The Encycle project aims to create a network of large-scale energy centres running on food and non-recyclable packaging throughout the UK, the first of which received planning permission last month. Once work has completed on the £80 million plant it is set to process 170,000 tonnes of food and non-recyclable packaging waste a year and produce enough electricity to power around 39,000 homes.
Inetec has developed a unique technology, called Abrasive Drying, to process both food and non-recyclable packaging waste without segregation, using the by-product, a highly prepared biomass fuel, to generate renewable energy.
Work began on the first centre, located near Immingham Docks in Yorkshire earlier this month at a cost of £80 million. The plant will process up to 500 tonnes a day of food and non-recyclable packaging waste, and will produce 22MW of renewable electricity. The project aims to develop ten of these plants over the next five years close to food manufacturing and retail clusters, thus providing a regionally based environmentally sustainable disposal route.
Inetec has worked closely with NISP for the last two years undertaking a detailed exercise to identify potential sites for the centres. This includes facilitating discussions with key retailers to consider the potential for housing these plants at major distribution centres. NISP has also been active in promoting Inetec’s energy from waste technology with a number of major food manufacturers who are members of the programme.
As a result of the collaboration with NISP, a number of national contracts have already been secured with some of the UK’s key players in the industry, including Greencore, Greggs and Northern Foods.
To find out how to make your company more profitable by becoming a member of NISP contact NISP Northern Ireland on 028 3833 9993 or 07799 143746 or email: northernireland@nisp.org.uk
Construction Synergy Workshop 4 March 2008
NISP in conjunction with the Construction Employers Federation will be running a Construction Industry Synergy workshop on 4 March 2008 at Templeton Hotel, Templepatrick. If you are interested in increasing your bottom line, saving money on disposal costs, or making the most of your resources log on to www.nisp.org.uk or telephone Elaine Kerr on 028 3833 9993 to register for the event.
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